Firefighters Rescue Woman After She Drives Down Steep Embankment In Manchester

MANCHESTER, NH - Manchester Fire and AMR ambulance were dispatched to 1949 South Willow Street for a car down an embankment.

Engine 3 arrived and determined a vehicle had driven off the side of the parking lot, went down a steep embankment, and was hung up on brush a few feet away from Cohas Brook that abuts the parking lot.

The operator of the vehicle was unaware of the circumstances that caused the accident and was complaining of lower extremity injuries. The small SUV rested on its wheels 30 feet down an embankment at a 75-degree angle.

Rescue 1 was requested for their technical rescue equipment to remove the patient safely from the icy embankment. The crews from Rescue 1 and Engine 3 set up rope systems to lower equipment and personnel down to the vehicle to remove the patient.

The patient had been exposed to below-freezing temperatures for over an hour. It took crews 26 minutes to reach the patient, set up rope systems, rig a stokes basket, and remove her to an awaiting AMR ambulance.

The patient was transported to a hospital for further evaluation. The call was under control at 8:46, with all units picked up and cleared

Manchester Fire said that temperatures below freezing, ice and snow-covered embankment, and the location of the vehicle in the woods, 30 feet below the parking lot, offered challenges.